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In June, the junior Republican senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, weighed in on the always controversial issue of immigration reform. The libertarian-leaning darling of the tea party tread into precarious territory by supporting efforts to reform the country's immigration system, something that some say cost his colleague, U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), dearly. Paul reportedly took part in a conference call with the Partnership for the New American Economy, a pro-reform group, on June 11, prompt

A bipartisan group of legislators looking to restore transparency to data collection programs conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) won an initial victory late last week. Passing 293-123, an amendment to H.R. 4870, the "Fiscal Year 2015 Department of Defense Appropriations Act," prohibits the agency from searching American citizens' communications without a warrant. A majority of both parties supported the NSA amendment. The amendment was designed to stop so-called "back door searche

The results are in from Iraq’s parliamentary elections from April 2014. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition received 92 of parliament’s 328 seats. The absence of a clear majority means that over the following weeks and months, Iraq’s leading politicians will be trying to form alliances and broker deals that will produce a majoritarian coalition government. The results have many pundits feeling pessimistic. Some observers expect that Maliki will cobble together a broad Shi’a

It’s no secret that the Keystone issue is a political powder keg. Neither is it a secret that it’s a controversial topic pitting two traditional foes: environmentalists versus big oil. Very murky, however, is what benefit Keystone XL offers the United States.As in so many situations, in order to understand the present, we need to understand the past and Keystone has a bit of a checkered and rapidly evolving past. With blinding speed, progress on the Keystone project began in 2005 when it was pr

For the 46.5 million Americans living below the poverty line, 16 million of which are children, life has become a consistent struggle. This struggle does not simply begin and end with monetary concerns, but in fact surrounds both a physical and mental exertion of the individual.Using the national U.S. census and NCCP, researchers found that in 2013, the poverty line rested at $11,490, a number which equates an individual working full time while only making $5.00 – far below the national minimum

"Today, I and many other citizens of Pennsylvania will be denied the right to vote," independent Pennsylvania voter Tom Stack wrote in a letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "It is not because we are in prison or non-citizens. It is because we are registered Independents or not affiliated with a political party." The Pennsylvania primaries will be held on Tuesday, May 20, along with the 2014 primary elections in Oregon, Kentucky, Idaho, Georgia, and Arkansas. Four out of the six states holdin

On Friday, Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul became one of the highest-profiled elected Republicans to speak out against voter identification laws. "Everybody's gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing. . . . I think it's wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it's offending people," Paul said at a gathering of black pastors in Memphis, Tennessee. This represents a slight modification in Paul's position. In 2013, Paul spoke at Howard University, an historically black co

There are few articles that have published about California's nonpartisan, top-two primary system that seem interested in factual information about Proposition 14, the 2010 ballot measure written by the Independent Voter Project and approved by California voters to reform the old closed primary system. One particular article, published on SFGate.com, didn't even allow the authors of Prop. 14 to speak on why we wrote it, what our expectations were, and what we believe has unfolded to date.There w

The United States is once again in the middle of a major election year and in many elections, people will go the polls with only two options to choose from -- red or blue, Republican or Democrat. The problem is a majority of Americans do not believe either major political party represents America. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 53 percent of likely voters believe "neither party in Congress is the party of the American people." While some may dispute the results of a single poll, furthe

Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer is claiming that numerous state colleges and universities are poised to plant crops of industrial hemp now that President Obama has signed the new Farm Bill into law. The Farm Bill, which cleared Congress on February 4, permits pilot hemp-growing programs in states that have laws allowing its cultivation. “What I have done is reached out to the universities that have expressed to me in wanting to do research on industrial hemp. We’re going to procee